Scaling Up Health Innovations by Pinoys

The HIP TechBootCamp (HIP TBC) Scaling-Up Consultation Session held last October 20, 2012 at the UP-AyalaLand TechnoHub in Diliman, Quezon City turned out to be a great success.

What started with the introductions by Ms. Rhia Ramirez of Ayala Foundation was followed by Dr. Elmer Soriano’s quick Philippine health situationer update. The event was also graced with the presence of Dr. Bien Nillos of Zuellig Family Foundation who talked about Ten Ways Technologies Can Help Rural Health Systems. Dr. Bien gave his insights on how health technologies can help change health seeking behaviour, how it can make monitoring easier, and how it can make communities participative, amongst others.

As the event was geared towards the HIP TBC start-up teams, Ms. Maoi Arroyo of Hybridigm Consulting also shared her takes on having a Go-To Market strategy / total addressable market, looking at customers & influencers, and considering the ‘freemium model’. Maoi also emphasized that as a start-up technopreneur, one has got to remember that as you increase your execution, you thereby lower your technical &market risks and at the same time increase your valuation in order to attain the maximum vision possible.

The session was capped with a consultation where each of the start up teams presented to a panel comprised of Maoi Arroyo, Engr. Rey Negre of Intellectual Property Philippines Office, and Dr. Denton Chua, President and CEO of Health Cube. Facilitated by Dr. Elmer Soriano and Rhia Ramirez, each team shared the problems encountered in integrating a technology enabled health service delivery to target markets. Engr. Rey emphasized practical intellectual property (IP) approaches in enabling disclosures, patent filings, licensing, non-disclosure & non-compete agreements. Ms. Maoi, on the other hand, talked of simultaneous technical & managerial development, looking for key opinion leaders, getting enough cash flow, and social return on investment. Dr. Chua, with his medical background and successful health technology-related ventures, shared his own personal entrepreneurial experience. Critical was how, in the case of friends and families going into business together, contracts stipulating shares, exit strategies, etc should all be laid out on the table. Both the HIP TBC teams and the panel of experts were caught up in exchanges that extended well into lunch-time and private consultations followed soon thereafter.

It was a good day to wrap up AyalaTBI and Access Health’s 2012 TechBootCamp on Health.